Memories in Crayon
by EsmeAmelia
Summary: When young Ben draws a picture of Han, it stimulates Han's memories of his own parents.


AN: I don't own Star Wars. This was written as a cheering-up present for my friend MasterOf4Elements, who's been going through some rough times lately.

"Memories in Crayon"

By EsmeAmelia

"Daddy, look!"

"What is it, son?" Han asked as he made his way to the kitchen table, where Ben had been concentrating on his drawing for quite some time. Crayons were strewn about on the table, some of which had their wrappers ripped off or were broken in two. Han thought that maybe he and Leia should get Ben a new set of crayons soon.

Ben held up his drawing, waving it back and forth and making the paper flap in the air. "I drew you!"

"You drew me?" Han exclaimed. "Can I see?"

"Yup, yup!" said Ben, his smile pushing cute little dimples into his cheeks. "Come look!" He put the drawing on the table and pointed proudly at it. "There's you!"

Han looked down at his son's drawing. The head was a giant circle with dots for eyes, a circle for a nose, and a wide smile, along with thick brown crayon encircling the head for his hair. The body was a stick figure, but there were a couple of yellow crayon lines dangling from one of the arms with little squares at the ends.

"Are those my lucky dice?" Han asked, pointing at the little squares.

"Yup!" said Ben, nodding in a fast, playful manner.

"Wow," said Han. "So I'm gonna be lucky, right?"

"_Very_ lucky." Ben tapped the little squares with his own pudgy fingers. "You're gonna have sooooo much luck that the bad guys will _never_ get you!"

Han smiled, disguising the fact that his stomach was churning a little. A memory he hadn't thought of in years had suddenly awakened in his mind – he might have even forgotten that memory entirely before now, but here it was. Vague, blurry, distant, but existing all the same.

"I drew a picture like this for my daddy once," he found himself saying, though he wasn't sure why he was telling Ben this.

Ben's little eyes widened. "You did?"

"Yup." Han sat down next to his son. "I didn't have a lotta toys when I was a kid cause my family didn't have much money, but one time my daddy got me my own box of crayons and paper to draw on. The first thing I drew was a picture of him like this one. I think I even drew the lucky dice in that picture too – they used to belong to my daddy, remember."

Ben grinned, showing the little gap in his teeth from having recently lost his first baby tooth. "Can I see it?"

Han's stomach churned again. "Sorry buddy, but I don't have it anymore." It probably didn't even _exist_ anymore – probably the landlords of their old apartment building destroyed it after Han's parents died.

Ben frowned as he looked down at the drawing. "I wish I knew what Grandpa looked like so I could draw him too."

What _did_ he look like? There were times when Han thought he remembered what his father looked like, but other times he found himself questioning his memories. "Well . . . I think he had brown hair like mine, and a beard sometimes, but sometimes he shaved his beard off and then grew it back – I think." He hated being so uncertain. Why hadn't he saved even one picture of his parents after they died? Why didn't he have _anything _of theirs except the dice?

Then again, why did they die in the first place and leave their son alone?

"Daddy?" said Ben, touching his father's hand. "Don't be sad."

Right, the Force, Ben knew what he was feeling even if he put on a smile. "I'm sorry, buddy. Sometimes I just miss my parents and wish they could've known you."

Then Ben's face lit up as if he'd gotten a brilliant idea. "How about you think of them and I draw them?"

"_Think_ of them?"

Ben nodded vigorously. "Yeah. If you think of them, then I could see them in my head!"

Mind-reading. Ben was still young enough to not really understand that people didn't like their thoughts being invaded, but it wasn't like he could help being Force-sensitive. Hopefully he would learn to control his telepathy as he got older, but after pondering it for a minute, Han didn't really see any harm in what his son was suggesting, even if he wasn't exactly comfortable with having his mind read. "All right, son, let's try it."

"Okay, close your eyes and think of them."

Han did so. Though the faces were blurry, he could still pick out details that he thought he remembered. His mother's long, black hair – the shade that Ben had inherited. His father's beard that he sometimes shaved off. Sitting in his father's lap and smelling the grease from the starship factory. His mother wearing baggy gray pants to work. Playing with the lucky dice and his father telling him that one day they'd get their own starship.

"Done!"

Han opened his eyes, feeling slightly out of sorts. Ben was now gesturing proudly at a second drawing, this one of three more figures with big smiling heads and stick figure bodies.

"Look," said Ben, pointing at the figure with the yellow crayon dice dangling from its arm and brown crayon on its head and over its mouth. "There's Grandpa." He pointed at the second figure with long lines of black crayon down the sides of its head. "That's Grandma." Finally he pointed at the smaller figure in the middle. "And that's _you_ when you were a kid like me!"

Han could only stare. It was a child's drawing, but it was still a tangible image of his parents taken from his memories. He swallowed several times, blinking back the tears that pricked at the edges of his eyes.

"Daddy?" asked Ben. "Do you like it?"

"Like it?" Han said after taking a deep breath. "I _love_ it!" He scooped his son into his arms and kissed his head. "Thanks so much, buddy."

"Can we hang them on the fridge?"

"Of course!" said Han, kissing his son again. "Let's hang both of them on the fridge and show them to your mom when she gets home."

"Yay!"

THE END


End file.
